 | RADARURBANITY Positive uncertainty. The enormous hole in the middle of Melbourne that is the QV site is being filled day by day. Donald Bates looks at the urban ideas of difference and diversity developed to build a new city block.
|
|
Aerial view of the QV site under construction.
|
Concept image of QV Square.
|
Swanston Street facade, showing the visually permeable retail podium.
|
BHP Billiton headquarters building by Lyons.
|
Concept drawing of the north lane.
|
Site plan showing the architects of the various buildings.
|
|
|
“How do you create an instant city?” “How do you create urban diversity?” Relevant and critical, these questions are
posed by the B+N Group as part of an
introductory brochure for the QV (Queen Vic)
project in Melbourne. As the lead architects,
urban planners and design architects of the
basement, retail podium and public space
of the QV, B+N has initiated an intriguing
architectural matrix for this ambitious project.
The project is notable for its broad
assemblage of well-respected Melbourne
architects, each responsible for a specific
building, under the over-all guidance and
design precepts set by the B+N Group.
Currently under construction, the project will
open with buildings by Denton Corker
Marshall (office building for Andersens),
Lyons (office building for BHP Billiton),
McBride Charles Ryan (apartment building),
John Wardle Architects (apartment tower)
and Kerstin Thompson Architects (car park).
B+N Group is working in association with
the design architects for the apartment
buildings and car park.
This breadth of architectural
implementation, within the scope of a single
large-scale project, is a dynamic response
to the desire for architectural and urban
diversity. The wholesale construction of a
complete urban block in central Melbourne
obviously runs the risk of creating a monoculture
enclave, with formal repetition and
stylistic self-referencing. B+N’s strategy of
postulating and managing a matrix of design
agendas and authorships promises a more
complex and heterogeneous melding of
spatial and organisational experiences. The
“instant city” is obviously more than just an
aggregation of “different” building forms, but
this strategy has, at the very least, identified
a mechanism for setting in play a “positive
uncertainty”. The provocative aspect of this
uncertainty lies in the struggle and
freshness required to accommodate a
complex integration of separate architectonic
responses. While operating under the
dictates of commercial viability and a very
pragmatic developer (Grocon), the QV
project is significant in that it uses real
design differences to provide a development
of depth and variation.
Along with the development of the QV
project, three other large-scale developments
have recently been announced for
Melbourne. Melbourne Central, adjacent to
the QV site, has announced a major overhaul,
focused on reversing the lack of external
frontages and reinvigorating the spatial
connections between its central core and the
street. Collins Place has also just announced
a plan to open up the external edges of its
site (particularly Flinders Lane), augmenting
the commercial frontages of the internal
courtyard with new, external frontages.
Freshwater Place, a new development on
South Bank, near the casino, promotes itself
as a new “urban village”. The continual
references to an undefined notion of “urban
village” remains to be critically addressed.
Nonetheless, each of these examples attempt
to capitalise on this theme, with tactics for
opening up internal spaces, adding increased
frontages and offering hybrid activities.
The QV project, as a new project and not
a redevelopment, conceptually plans the
block formed not as a single mass with
access routes, but as the aggregation of
distinct structures, with embedded laneways
and open public spaces. The B+N scheme
consciously opposes the legacy of projects
such as Melbourne Central and Collins Place,
with their internalisation of commercial
space, their “big box” scaling, and their lack
of differentiation.
A graphic from the brochure compares
the length of frontage proposed at QV – the
laneways and cross-sectional linkages,
culminate in an impressive 1.7 km – with
that of Melbourne Central (500 metres). The
attention now paid to the morphology and
iconology of the city grid and the laneways/
arcades system is interesting in its currency.
With Federation Square located outside the
CBD grid, we proposed a decidedly different
geometrical order. We introduced a notion of
permeability to the buildings and public
spaces, countering this to the cultural
enclaves constructed in the previous
decades. The QV scheme extends the
commercial benefits of a permeable site,
and in doing so gives the animation and
activation necessary for the block to become
both a destination and an integrated fabric
within the city. The lanes of the QV project
run predominantly east to west, a shift in
direction compared to most other laneways
in the city. Perhaps this shift will initiate a
new linkage system in the northern quadrant
of the CBD.
One challenge that the QV design
addresses with success is the cross-site
gradient. There is a considerable fall in level
from the corner of Russell Street and Little
Lonsdale, down to the corner of Swanston
Street and Lonsdale Street. The crosssection
of the project reveals an overlap of
open, public spaces, with linkages treated
as means for renegotiating the levels of the
podium and the connections back to the
encircling streets. This cross-section, when
read with the elevations of the major
structures, suggests that the podium is not
merely a structural plinth for these buildings,
but rather that it is a dense zone of interface
and engagement that filters across the site.
The range of sizes for commercial tenancies
reinforces the hybrid groups and groupings
suggested by B+N’s research.
The main public space is placed towards
the northern edge of the site. Fronted by the
backside of the Women’s Centre, a concern
must exist over the visibility of QV Square in
relation to the activities of Lonsdale Street.
Relationships should emerge between the
public spaces at QV and the forecourt of the
State Library to the north, but retention of
the heritage-listed Women’s Centre (a
remnant of the Queen Victoria Hospital) and
its provisional integration into the rest of the
site (based on commercial and operational
demarcations) leaves doubts about the site
reaching its full potential.
Much of the commentary on aspects of
the QV project has focused on the designs
of the primary structures, particularly John
Wardle’s apartment tower and the BHP
Billiton building by Lyons. The role of the
B+N Group and their management and
conceptualisation of the project has been
under-reported. Roger Nelson leads with
expertise in commercial and strategic
planning and the team has the design
firepower of Hamish Lyons and Peter
Dredge. The presence of Lyndon Hayward
within the group is fundamental, as he
carries recognisable experience in large
developments, having overseen both Crown
Casino and Docklands stadium.
The aspirations underwriting the urban
concepts of the QV project are ambitious
and not without architectural and
commercial risks. Importantly, it appear to
be an aspiration backed by a solid analysis
of contemporary urban thought and
techniques and is a positive contribution to
reinvigoration of the urban domain. This is
not a nostalgic repackaging of a lost urban
history, but a thoughtful and optimistic
experiment in contemporary urbanism.
Donald Bates is a principal of Lab Architecture Studio
|
|
